The Life Of Sgt. Robert Bales

1. According to this report, what types of atrocities are being committed by the U.S. military?

When Allied commanders during World War II needed engineers to clear the beaches of Normandy, when the 4th Infantry Division needed airfields repaired, roads maintained, and bridges built in Vietnam, and when the 24th Infantry Division needed someone to identify and mark the main routes into Iraq during the Gulf War there was one unit that stood above all others. That unit was the 299th Combat Engineer Battalion. The 299th was activated on March 1st, 1943 at Camp White, Oregon. Since then the unit has been put on reserve and active status, deactivated and reactivated, and assigned many different higher headquarters in order to meet the Army’s mission. The 299th Combat Engineer Battalion had always been quick to act, brave under fire, and completed crucial missions in order to ensure the mobility of the main force. The 299th is a very distinctive and proud unit.

Throughout the story of this one deployment, there are parts where the author talks about his early life as well as some parts of his earlier days in the Army. The author puts these Stories in to the book in an intriguing way to help explain why and how the author ended up where he did.

troops on a hopeless humanitarian mission pulled out of Mogadishu, Somalia. A few Americans realize that during this mission, U.S. troops had the most continuous and gruesome battle fought by American’s since the Vietnam War. The afternoon of October 3rd, 1993, soldiers of Task Force Ranger, and Delta Force were sent to capture two lieutenants of a rebel Somalian warlord and return to base. This mission was supposed to take 30 min, but instead, the soldiers were pinned down in the middle of Mogadishu market and in a desperate effort of kill or be killed. For about 20 hours, U.S. soldiers created a bloody firefight that resulted in 19 American fatalities and the death of 1000 Somali fighters. Black Hawk Down tells the story of that desperate battle, from all angles of the war.

Though the men reacted in violent ways in different situations, O’Brian’s violent act was something that stayed with him for the rest of his life and completely changed who he was as a person. “The Man I Killed” describes in detail the man and his life Tim O’Brien killed on a path in the jungle, even though he obviously did not know the man’s personal background, but mimicked it after his own. This description shows O’Brien’s life came to an end at his first act of violence, mirrored in the loss of the man’s life. After O’Brien’s incident on the pathway, he became cold and exemplified this new disposition after Jorgenson almost allowed O’Brien to die from a bullet wound, and in turn O’Brien needed pay back by scaring him in the middle of the night. The war may have physically killed many, but in this sense it damaged every soldier mentally.

Manny Bojorquez: In 2012 he attempted suicide after the deaths of comrades in his unit. His experience in the Marines is the basis for the article.

Edie’s father, Sergeant Eduardo Salazar was a member from the Sacramento Police Department. He was on neighborhood watch that early afternoon in an unmarked vehicle, when a bank robbery was broadcasted over the police radio. Sgt. Salazar responded to the call and proceeds to the location nearby as quickly as possible.

They carried their reputations. They carried the soldier’s greatest fear, which was the fear of blushing. Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory and dishonor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor (O’Brien P. 369).

On November 5, 2009, the public gained knowledge about an incident that took place at an U.S. Army installation. Maj. Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, fatally shot 13 people and injured more than 30 others. He was facing a deployment to one of the many war zones overseas (McFadden, 2009). There are many reports about this incident and what actually took place. From what I’ve gathered, Hasan went into a processing center where soldiers go before and after they come back from deployment. After Hasan’s shooting rampage, he was finally stopped when Army Military Police (MP) officers shot him a total of four times. He is now paralyzed from the waist down due to the shooting. The Fort Hood shooting marked the worst shooting ever to take place on a military installation state side, to record. There was almost no structural damage because he used hand guns instead of bombs, or what we call weapons of mass destruction.

I first learned about Omega Psi Phi when I was a child. One of my late father’s best friends would always wear Omega apparel no matter what was going on. The Omega man’s name is Marquette Allen but I always knew him as “Tiny” and this man is far from being small. I grew up with his sons as friends on into high school where we all played football.

Argueably, one of the most common psychological traits found in mass killers is depression. According to reports, Holmes suffered from depression at a young age and took

At 10:45, one Thursday morning, the gunshots erupted through the town of Chattanooga. Gunshots exploded from the inside of a car with Mohammed directed at the U.S army recruiting center. A clerk, Fred Wright, heard the pops from a nearby auto parts store, then saw the staff fleeing to the brush (Truesdell 48). Members of the staff cried out, "Call 911, someone is shooting at us!"(Truesdell 48). The shooter disappeared from the scene, and he was found ten miles away aiming and firing at the Navy Operational Support Center and the Marine Corps Reserve Center (Truesdell 48). Abdulazeez was more than prepared when he crashed his car into a gate and, wearing a body armor vest, advanced with his weapons, and on foot he advanced toward Marines who were conducting an inventory of equipment (Truesdell 48). Four bodies collapsed to the ground. The four men courageously died before Abdulazeez was killed by a police sniper; later, a Navy man died due to his injuries (Truesdell 48). Unquestionably, this was a tragedy that should not have happened. It left many with the question of why.

Robert Bowdrie (Bowe) Bergdahl is a United States Army sergeant who left his post in Afghanistan 2009 purposefully and intentionally. The Bowe Bergdahl case is an odd case that sometimes does not make much sense. He will be facing court-martial sometime this year for is desertion and misbehavior. The Uniform Code of Military Justice is very similar to regular law but has some adjustments that pertain to certain military rules and regulations. Bergdahl violated one of the most important rules and the first General Order, these orders are a soldier’s guideline on how to conduct

The second season of the podcast series, Serial, hosted by Sarah Koenig, an American Journalist, focuses on a soldier named Bowe Bergdahl, who, at the age of 19, enlisted into the Coast Guard. Bowe Bergdahl only lasted a couple weeks in training due to the fact that he was diagnosed with situational anxiety. Without proper guidance, the Army did not look into Bergdahl 's diagnosis. Therefore, Bowe Bergdahl was able to re-enlist into the army. Because the Army neglected to check Bowe’s medical history, Bowe caused a Dustwun in the middle of Afghanistan in 2009, and was later captured by the Taliban. As a result, the Taliban established a trade with the United States. In exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, the Taliban wanted five of their commanders who were held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay. However, the Army could have prevented Bowe from being held captive, if the military had checked Bowe’s records. Therefore, the army was at fault for allowing a mentally ill soldier to re-enlist in the army.

The date was September 14, 2012. At around 10 p.m. Camp Leatherneck was attacked by 15 insurgents. These attackers, organized into three teams, began an assault on the airfield of Bastion. While wearing U.S. Army uniforms, the attackers toted automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and suicide vests. While aboard Camp Leatherneck/Camp Bastion, they inflicted incredible damage to the air-wing. Destroying six AV-8B Harrier jets and damaging two others, along with six aircraft hangers suffering damage, and six refueling stations were destroyed. While trying to fight the attackers off, two U.S. Marines were shot and killed, along with injuring several others.